Page 149 of The Seven Sisters

But instinctively, I knew that this was the reason why I’d come to him tonight. The story I’d been hearing over the past few days – coupled with Pa Salt’s death – had unleashed the pain and guilt of what I had once done. Then there was Floriano, of course, whose life circumstances had held up an unflattering mirror to my own sad, solitary life.

‘I will say it,’ I blurted out before I lost my nerve. ‘When I was at university, I met someone. He was a couple of years older than me and I met him in the last semester of my second year. He was in his final year and about to leave. I fell in love with him and was very careless and stupid. When I went home for the summer, I realised I was pregnant. But it was too late to do anything about it. So,’ I sighed, knowing I must tell the story quickly and get to the end before I broke down, ‘Marina, the woman I’ve mentioned to you, who brought all us six girls up, helped me arrange to go away and have the baby. Then’ – I paused, garnering every ounce of courage I had to speak the words – ‘when he was born, I gave him up immediately for adoption.’

Taking a large gulp of wine, I screwed my fists into my eyes to dam the torrent that was in danger of flooding out of them.

‘Maia, it’s okay, cry if you want. I understand,’ he said softly.

‘It’s just that . . . I haven’t ever told anyone this,’ I admitted, feeling my heart palpitating in my chest. ‘And I’m so ashamed . . . so ashamed . . .’

The tears began to fall, even though I’d done my best to stop them. Floriano came to sit next to me on the sofa and took me into his arms. He stroked my hair as I babbled incoherently about how I should have been stronger and kept the child, whatever it took. And how not a single day had gone by since they took my baby away from me a few minutes after I’d given birth to him that I hadn’t relived that terrible moment.

‘They never even let me see his face . . .’ I moaned. ‘They said it was for the best.’

Floriano offered no sympathy or platitudes, until the last shred of despair left me like the final whistle of air from a popped balloon and my entire body sagged in exhaustion. I lay there silently against his chest, wondering what on earth had possessed me to tell him my terrible secret.

Floriano remained silent. Eventually, I asked in desperation, ‘Are you shocked?’

‘No, of course not. Why would I be?’

‘Whywouldn’tyou be?’

‘Because,’ he sighed sadly, ‘you did what you thought was right at the time, under the circumstances you faced. And there’s no crime in that.’

‘Perhaps murderers also think what they did was right,’ I countered morosely.

‘Maia, you were very young and very frightened, and I presume the father was not around to make an honest woman of you? Or to even support you?’

‘God no,’ I said with a shudder as I remembered my last conversation with Zed at the end of that summer term. ‘To him, we were no more than a fling. He was leaving university and about to begin his future. He told me he felt long-distance relationships rarely worked and that it had been fun, but it was best if it ended there. While we were still friends,’ I added with a grim chuckle.

‘And you never told him you were pregnant?’

‘I didn’t realise I was for sure until I arrived home and Marina took one look at me and carted me off to the doctor’s. By that time, I was too far gone to do anything but have it. I was so naive, so stupid,’ I berated myself. ‘And so in love that I was prepared to do anything he wanted me to.’

‘Which I presume meant not spoiling his enjoyment of you with contraception?’

‘Yes.’ I hid my blushes in his shirt. ‘But I should have –couldhave – protected myself more carefully. I wasn’t a child, after all, but I suppose I just didn’t believe it would happen to me.’

‘Many inexperienced young women don’t, Maia. Especially in the first flush of love. Did you speak to your father about it?’ he asked. ‘It sounds as though the two of you were very close.’

‘We were, but not inthatway. It’s impossible to explain, but I was his little girl, his first child. And he had such high hopes for me. I was flying at the Sorbonne and was expected to gain a first-class degree. To be honest, I would have died rather than ever tell him how stupid I’d been.’

‘What about Marina? Did she not try to persuade you to tell your father?’

‘Yes, she did, but I was adamant that I couldn’t. I know it would have broken his heart.’

‘So instead, you broke your own,’ Floriano countered.

‘It was the best option at the time.’

‘I understand.’

We sat there on the sofa in silence for a while, and I stared at the candle flickering in the darkness, reliving the pain of the decision I’d made.

‘It must have occurred to you at some point that your father had adopted six girls of his own,’ Floriano ventured suddenly. ‘And that perhaps he, of all people, would understand the predicament you were in?’

‘It didn’t at the time.’ My shoulders slumped in renewed despair. ‘But of course, since he died, I’ve thought about it constantly. Even so, I can’t explain who he was to me. I idolised him and wanted his approval.’

‘More than his help,’ Floriano clarified.